Breast size dissatisfaction does not lower a mother’s confidence in breastfeeding

Many women experience dissatisfaction with their breast size, but these aesthetic concerns do not appear to lower their confidence in their ability to breastfeed. A study of pregnant women in Türkiye found no link between breast size dissatisfaction and prenatal breastfeeding self-efficacy. The findings were published in the Journal of Health Psychology.

Breasts are heavily scrutinized under cultural and societal beauty standards. Globally, up to 70 percent of women report wanting a different breast size than the one they have. This widespread dissatisfaction often negatively affects self-esteem and mental well-being. The pressure to conform to an idealized body shape can cause localized appearance anxiety.

Researchers wanted to understand if these appearance anxieties spill over into biological and maternal functions, specifically breastfeeding. Past research in various countries has shown that having a generally positive body image is linked to higher confidence in breastfeeding. A positive view of the body often translates to a stronger belief in the body’s physical capabilities.

However, specific anxieties about breast size are less understood. Misconceptions persist worldwide that smaller breasts cannot produce enough milk or that larger breasts are inherently better for feeding infants. These myths can erode a mother’s confidence before the baby is even born.

In psychological terms, this confidence is known as self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to a person’s belief in their own ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task. High prenatal breastfeeding self-efficacy is a strong predictor of actual breastfeeding initiation and duration after birth.

Free daily newsletter

To investigate this localized body anxiety, nursing researchers Kıymet Yeşilçiçek Çalık and Ebru Küçük Erdöl at Karadeniz Technical University, along with Hatice İkra Şan at Ankara Etlik City Hospital, evaluated maternal perceptions in Türkiye. In Turkish culture, breastfeeding is highly valued and viewed as a fundamental duty of motherhood. The researchers sought to find out whether a mother’s subjective dissatisfaction with her pre-pregnancy breast size might act as a psychological barrier to her self-efficacy.

The researchers recruited 518 pregnant women from the antenatal clinics of a university hospital. The participants were between 28 and 42 weeks of gestation. The women were experiencing uncomplicated, single-infant pregnancies. The average age of the participants was nearly 31 years old.

During private face-to-face interviews, researchers asked the women to provide demographic information and details about their pregnancy history. Just under half of the participants were experiencing their first pregnancy. The researchers also asked the participants if they believed breast size affects breastfeeding success or milk production.

To measure body dissatisfaction, the researchers used a visual rating tool consisting of 14 computer-generated images of women. These images featured progressively increasing breast sizes but lacked facial features to prevent bias. Participants selected the image that best matched their current size and the image that represented their ideal size. The numerical difference between these two selections represented their level of dissatisfaction.

Next, the researchers measured breastfeeding self-efficacy using a 20-item questionnaire. This tool asked participants to rate how confident they felt about various aspects of breastfeeding on a scale from one to five. A higher total score indicated greater confidence.

The results showed a high level of dissatisfaction among the participants. More than 65 percent of the women were dissatisfied with their breast size. The most common desire was for a smaller size, which accounted for nearly 49 percent of the total group. Only about 17 percent of the women wished for larger breasts.

Despite this widespread dissatisfaction, the women displayed high levels of confidence in their ability to breastfeed. More than 80 percent of the participants stated that they did not believe breast size affects breastfeeding success. Additionally, 86.5 percent did not associate breast size with milk production.

When the researchers analyzed the data, they found that the results were not statistically significant regarding a link between breast size dissatisfaction and breastfeeding self-efficacy. In other words, feeling unhappy with the aesthetic appearance of their breasts did not correspond to lower confidence in their functional ability to nourish a child.

This lack of association remained true even after the researchers adjusted the statistical models to account for women who had previous breastfeeding experience. The data suggest that in certain contexts, women mentally separate their feelings about how their body looks from their belief in what their body can do.

The authors propose that the transition to motherhood might prompt a cognitive shift. In societies where the maternal role is deeply revered, the functional utility of the breast as a feeding organ appears to take priority over its form. Appearance anxieties simply do not translate into a lack of health confidence for these mothers.

The study relied entirely on self-reported questionnaires, which can introduce bias if participants provide answers they feel are socially acceptable. The cross-sectional design of the study also captures only a single moment in time during pregnancy. This prevents researchers from observing how maternal confidence might shift after the baby is born.

The research was conducted at a single hospital in Türkiye, which limits how the findings might apply to other cultural settings. The specific sociocultural environment, where maternal identity is highly salient, likely plays a protective role against aesthetic anxieties.

The participants also reported very high baseline confidence in breastfeeding overall. This high overall self-efficacy might buffer the subtle effects of localized body dissatisfaction. A population with lower baseline confidence might show different results.

Future investigations will need to track women longitudinally from early pregnancy through the postpartum period. Researchers suggest that educational programs focusing on the biological utility of the body, rather than its appearance, could help dismantle lingering myths about breast size and milk production for those who still hold them.

The study, “The Association Between Pre-Pregnancy Breast size dissatisfaction and prenatal breastfeeding self-efficacy: A correlational study,” was authored by Kıymet Yeşilçiçek Çalık, Ebru Küçük Erdöl, and Hatice İkra Şan.